Monday, August 17, 2009

"A Sidelight On The Book Signing In Michiana"

We attended a book signing at the Tree Tops restaurant, which has a bar, which, though we were having dinner, was where we were seated. The bar was extremely noisy, either as a result of the book signing, or because it’s a bar. In any case, after meeting the author, having her sign a couple of books, and having a bite to eat, the noise exceeds our tolerance levels, and Dr. M and I decide to leave.

The problem was, there was a White Sox game on the bar’s TV, and I wanted to watch it. Owing to the earsplitting din, however, we had no choice but to hit the road. I would have to catch the rest of the game on the radio back at the cabin.

Arriving home minutes later, I immediately switch on the radio. And I can’t find the game. I thought I knew what station it was on; I had listened to another Sox game earlier in the trip. But it wasn’t there.

Or anywhere else.

Listening for the play-by-pay, I work my way up the AM dial, all the way up to the Spanish stations, in the 1700’s. No ballgame. I then try FM, based on my longstanding theory: “If something’s not where you think it is, look where you think it isn’t.”

The game is not there either.

Like, they’ve ever had a baseball game on FM. (Yes, they do. And during the "seventh inning stretch", they stop for a pledge drive.) No, they don’t, Brackets Man.

I am now feeling a little crazed. There’s no way there’s a ballgame being broadcast on TV that isn’t also on the radio. It’s impossible. I mean, occasionally, there are ballgames on the radio that are not on TV. But I’ve never experienced it the other way around. It’s all too bizarre. Was the game merely a fig Newton of my imagination?

This not the first time something bizarroland has happened to me in Michiana. Once, I bought an unfamiliar brand of unsweetened iced tea at Al’s Market, and when I went back later to buy more, they told me they never carried that brand.

What is this place? Brigadoon?

The ballgame mystery was ultimately solved with a call to Dr. M’s brother-in-law in Chicago. He informed us that the Sox game I had seen in the bar had been played earlier that afternoon. The TV broadcast was a replay.

Finally, it made sense.

They never replay ballgames on the radio.

But, you go back for ice tea and the store says they never carried it? That one remains a mystery.

1 comment:

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.